


One By One

by Kastaka



Category: Watchmen (Comic)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:23:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/pseuds/Kastaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't know what they are dealing with. Even those he works with, they don't really think he means it. Except he does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One By One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CousinShelley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CousinShelley/gifts).



"I know you're in there."

From anybody else, it would be a taunt. It would rise and fall in a sing-song fashion, tempting the person who is supposedly in there to come out and face the music.

In Rorshach's voice, it is flat. It is a statement of fact. He does, in fact, know you are in there.

There are not many options left for the one he is chasing, but the cornered one doesn't know that yet, so he tries to deal with the situation as if he were speaking to a jobbing adventurer, someone who just comes out and does this because they're bored or overconfident or didn't get enough attention as a child.

"Hey," they call out. "Yeah, I'm in here - an' I've got a gun in here with me. Nobody's coming in without gettin' their head blown off. You don' want that. It's not like them I stole from will hardly know any of it's gone, anyway."

"No," replies Rorshach, "but I will."

He takes a somewhat improvised-looking grenade from his belt, and regards it contemplatively.

"Thank you for telling me about the gun," he says, as he pulls out the pin and rolled it gently into the air conditioning vent.

He is already walking out when the blast hits.

\---

"I know you like to be well prepared and all, but why have you brought a _machete_?"

She always did ask stupid questions.

"What are you armed with?" he attempted.

"Why, you know my mother taught me everything I needed to know about takedowns. _Non-lethal_ takedowns, that is," she emphasised.

"Then I will handle the lethal ones."

That was the problem with that damn mask, she thought. You never could quite tell when he was being serious.

"Uh, okay then. But they're only photograph men. Collectors. I don't think we're going to come up against any real trouble..."

It would take her a long time to understand that he was _always_ serious.

\---

"You... you didn't have to kill them!"

"Long history in the business. Been in prison several times. Didn't seem to be helping."

"What are we going to do? There's... we're done for... I mean..."

"Leave it to me."

He calmly worked around the hysterics that Laurie seemed to be having, methodically setting out the crime scene. Here was where the deal had gone wrong. Here was the long knife this one - he tucked the cold fingers around it, working quickly before rigor mortis set in - had used to surprise the others. Here was the gun - he returned it to its original owner - that one of the victims had been carrying. Most unfortunate that he had time to discharge it before succombing to his wounds.

"How can you _do_ this?"

"Careful planning. Study of crime scenes..."

"No, no," she waved his concerns away with one gloved hand. Good. Some of them were learning. "I mean... _this."_

"Practice. Acquire side of pork from butcher's shop. Place on appropriate surface..."

"Ugh!" exclaimed Laurie, making a gesture of horror. "You just don't get it, do you?"

"If there is an 'it' to get," he replied, a base note of irritability crawling into his imperterbable tone, "you will explain later."

\---

"Dead is safest. Can't do anything. Or you think, more children tortured, worth not getting blood on dress?"

"No, no, that's not it," insisted Laurie, for what felt like the hundredth time. It was so hard to explain things to a blank canvas, especially one which was also rippling and changing disturbingly in ways that had nothing to do with the emotional state of its owner. She wished he would just take the bloody mask off in private. She'd fantasied about just getting up and ripping it off his horrible, smug head, but her survival instincts stopped her. Surely he wouldn't do anything to a good person... but there were things in her life that she knew he didn't approve of, and she didn't trust her ability to predict his movements or motivations.

"What is 'it', then." Normal people end questions with an upwards intonation. Rorshach... didn't always. "Or can we return to planning operation?"

"The others aren't here yet," Laurie pointed out. "And... it's important! You can't just go on the way you are. You're going to get us all locked up!"

"Oh," said Rorshach. "Concern for personal safety. Understood. Hence attempts not to endanger you. Mask. Gloves. Neutral meeting places."

"Not that!" exclaimed Laurie. "I got myself involved in this just like you... It's not about me."

"So who is it about?" asked Rorshach.

The question would go unanswered; Night Owl came through the door at that moment, and the meeting got underway shortly thereafter.

\---

He calmly regarded the gentleman who was standing in front of him.

"I did it," crowed his target. "I got it all out from under your nose. You won't find anything. You won't be able to prove it. The police would laugh it out of any courtroom. I cleaned up really well. There won't be any traces. Get the sniffer dogs in. Do whatever you like. Chase me wherever you like. You can't get me in jail and you can't do anything about the drugs. They've gone out; they're someone else's problem now. Oooh, I bet you're mad! How does that make you feel? Don't you just want to give me my just desserts? Doesn't this face just say 'punchable' to you?"

The face said nothing to him. It was wearing a hockey mask. That wouldn't help him.

The door chimes sounded on the elevator behind his interlocutor.

"Last chance," taunted the man. "Not like you can go to the cops. Come on. Take me down."

He stepped back, temptingly, into the elevator.

There was no car.

"I think," said Rorshach, taking a step forwards, "that you can take yourself down."

The man clung to the ledge, making this strange kind of keening noise: not exactly a scream, not pleading for his life, just an animal noise of panic.

Carefully, Rorshach bent down and prised the fingers off the landing, one by one.

\----

"You didn't."

"Do I lie to you frequently?"

"Of course not. But. Oh god. It was the same one? Hockey mask, brown hair, about yay tall?"

"Are my descriptions usually inaccurate?"

"No, no... but... you know he wasn't guilty, right?"

"Explain." There was a note of tension in Rorshach's voice that was rarely present.

"Well, it's the kid in the hockey mask! You know, he shows up at crime scenes, probably finding them just like we do, and he claims to be responsible. Even when he really couldn't have been. _Especially_ when he really couldn't have been. Night Owl reckons he just does it for the jollies..."

"The Jollies?" queried Rorshach.

"You know." Laurie squirmed uncomfortably. " _Sexual_ thrills. He likes being beaten up."

"Hmm." Rorshach considered for a moment. "Pervert. Not dangerous. Should not have gone down lift shaft."

"You're bloody right he shouldn't have!" cried Laurie. "I _told_ you that if you kept doing this, eventually you'd get it wrong!"

"Did not," asserted Rorshach. "Made appeals to common sense. Sense not in fact common; see newspapers, governments, streetwalkers."

"Ugh. You're impossible."

"Still," conceded Rorshach. "Definitely wrong decision. Will have to think harder in future."

"Good!" exclaimed Laurie. "And maybe you can stop, I don't know, killing people, too! At least if you just incapacitate them you can let them go and say sorry afterwards..."

"Sometimes people need to die." Rorshach seemed lost in thought, and Laurie left him to it as she tidied up some paperwork. When she was done, she looked back to see him in exactly the same position.

"What is it, Rorshach?" she asked.

"Spectre," he said. "Do I need to die?"

Laurie made a frustrated noise deep in her throat.

"Of course not, Rorshach," she insisted. "We're the good guys, remember?"

"Killed an innocent man. Not very good."

"Everyone screws up from time to time," she reassured him. "You've learned an important lesson today. It'd be a shame not to put it to some use, huh?"

"Am in gutter also," replied Rorshach, "but at least am looking up to stars?"

"Yeah," she replied fondly, "yeah, that's it."

"Is confusing," he complained.

"Life is," she reminded him.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the wonderful iBear from #yuletide!


End file.
